President George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker used “I don’t have a dog in that fight” in the 1980s and 1990s. It means “I don’t have an interest in this matter.” It is not known where or when the saying originated.


Wikipedia: Idioms
Have a dog in the fight/race To have a stake in, or be exposed to the risks associated with, the outcome of some problem or dispute. Conversely, “I don’t have a dog in that fight” is frequently used as a way to beg off and opt out of being expected to assist

21 August 1984, Washington Post, pg. A9:
DALLAS, Aug. 20—Vice President Bush today gingerly sidestepped questions about the financial disclosure problems of Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.), saying, “I don’t have a dog in that fight.”

8 April 1995, Elyria (OH) Chronicle-Telegram, pg. C8?:
More honestly, the party chief (Haley Barbour—ed.), who’s trying to play traffic cop among at least eight GOP presidential candidates, says: “I am not as dumb as I look .. I ain’t got a dog in that fight.”

23 October 1996, New York Times, pg. A25:
How do New Yorkers pick a dog in this fight?

10 May 1997, Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, pg. C11, col. 3:
“As they say here in Texas, we don’t have a dog in that fight.”

7 March 1999, New York Times, pg. BU1:
WHEN Wall Street competitors start growling and snapping at one another, the safest place for the general public is usually a good block away. As the folks down home would say, we probably don’t have a dog in that fight.

16 February 2003, New York Times, pg. WK11:
After a recent U.N. session on the Iraq crisis, I asked a Bush aide how China was behaving. “The Chinese?” the official said. “They don’t think they have a dog in this fight.”

New York Times
10 December 2006, New York Times, Sunday Magazine, “On Language” by William Safire:
“I don’t have a dog in that fight” has long been a favorite Texas saying of former Secretary of State James Baker (now cuttingly called “acting secretary of state”).